Tuesday, 28 February 2017

Uber CEO: 'I Need Leadership Help' After Berating Driver on Video


Travis Kalanick plans to seek leadership advice after a run of troubling news involving Uber, capped by an online video of him dressing down one of the ride-hailing service’s drivers.
http://on.wsj.com/2mbZfaf

For Snap, the Truth Will Be in Advertising


Snap calls itself a camera company, but everything beyond the first line of its IPO filing suggests it is an advertising company. And estimating how much ad revenue it can generate is key to determining its value.
http://on.wsj.com/2mD5ykF

SoftBank Orchestrates Satellite Deal to Expand Internet Reach


Japanese telecom giant SoftBank is orchestrating a deal between U.S. satellite startup OneWeb and debt-laden satellite operator Intelsat in an attempt to deliver cheaper internet connectivity world-wide.
http://on.wsj.com/2mD5MbB

'Angry Birds' Maker Rovio Returns to Profit


Rovio Entertainment said it returned to a profit in 2016 thanks to increased spending on marketing and attention from the Angry Birds movie based on its well-known fowls.
http://on.wsj.com/2mCGDNW

Salesforce Sees Increase in Deferred Revenue


Salesforce.com posted a 29% jump in deferred revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter, a sign the business-software company continues to rack up customers moving computing operations to the cloud.
http://on.wsj.com/2mCuVTz

Amazon Grapples With Outage at AWS Cloud Service


An outage at Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud-computing service disrupted internet traffic across the U.S. on Tuesday, showing the increasing power cloud companies have over large portions of the web.
http://on.wsj.com/2maXyK0

South Korea's LG Electronics to Build U.S. Factory in Tennessee


South Korean conglomerate LG Electronics said it is planning to build a new washing machine factory in Tennessee, its first major U.S. plant, and hire at least 600 workers by the end of 2019.
http://on.wsj.com/2mHC5Fq

Google's YouTube to Launch $35-a-Month Web-TV Service


Google’s YouTube on Tuesday unveiled a web-TV service that will offer a package of over 40 broadcast and cable channels for $35 a month, making the tech giant the latest entrant in a race to win over millions of consumers who are shifting away from traditional TV.
http://on.wsj.com/2mHAnUD

The Night They Locked Up All the Smartphones


At a show or party, you may find your phone sealed in one of Yondr’s pouches. Enjoy the freedom.
http://on.wsj.com/2m9Uv4U

Uber's All-Out Meritocracy Comes Under Fire


Uber enshrines “meritocracy and toe-stepping” in a list of 14 corporate values. That culture is now under scrutiny as the company faces allegations from a former engineer who said last week that managers dismissed her sexual-harassment complaints because the accused employee was a top performer.
http://on.wsj.com/2lSZKDE

WeWork Piles Into Paris


WeWork Cos. is making its entrance in France, where the technology industry has grown and hundreds of businesses offering communities of shared workspaces have sprouted.
http://on.wsj.com/2lSE2Qf

Salesforce Earnings: What to Watch


Business software provider Salesforce.com is expected to post rising revenue and profits when it reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings after the market closes.
http://on.wsj.com/2lSQYWh

The Newest Bank Blockchain: Will This Be the Breakthrough?


A new consortium of banks and tech giants is set to announce its formation, the latest stab at expanding open-ledger “blockchain” technology that promises to shave billions off the cost of basic Wall Street functions.
http://on.wsj.com/2lSCV2I

Honda Chases Silicon Valley With New Artificial-Intelligence Center


Honda is creating a research arm focused on artificial intelligence, an area where car makers are racing against tech giants and upstarts—and where one of Honda’s American advisers says it risks falling behind.
http://on.wsj.com/2lSScR9

Xiaomi Launches Its Own Chip, With an Assist From Beijing


Chinese government funding helped Xiaomi produce its first smartphone processor, the company’s chairman said as he unveiled the Pinecone Surge S1 chip.
http://on.wsj.com/2lSG8zq

Samsung Heir Lee Jae-yong Indicted on Bribery Charges


South Korean prosecutors indicted Samsung’s de facto leader Lee Jae-yong on charges of bribery and four other offenses, setting in motion legal proceedings that could put the tycoon behind bars for years.
http://on.wsj.com/2lSCUMc

Apple's Next iPhone Will Have a Curved Screen


Apple has decided to adopt a flexible OLED display for one model of the new iPhone coming out this year and has ordered sufficient components to enable mass production.
http://on.wsj.com/2lSDwS6

Where Is Evan Spiegel? Snap Inc.'s Founder Is Elusive, Secretive, and Soon to Be Very Rich


Ahead of a possible $22 billion IPO, Snap’s unorthodox CEO and co-founder has resisted Silicon Valley’s open, collaborative management culture and kept communication to a minimum. The question is whether this cosseted style will help the company challenge the Facebook juggernaut.
http://on.wsj.com/2lPGUNC

Monday, 27 February 2017

SpaceX Proposes Taking Tourists Around the Moon


Elon Musk’s SpaceX has proposed taking tourists around the moon in as soon as two years, touting such missions as the evolution of public-private partnerships favored by the Trump administration.
http://on.wsj.com/2l6PtXm

SpaceX Proposes a Private Manned Mission to Orbit Moon


Elon Musk’s SpaceX has proposed taking tourists around the moon in as soon as two years, touting such missions as the evolution of public-private partnerships favored by the Trump administration.
http://on.wsj.com/2l6PtXm

Priceline CEO Won't Touch Trump Travel Ban


Priceline Group declined to address President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees, opting to sit out a topic that has roiled the travel sector.
http://on.wsj.com/2lPNALF

Priceline Avoids Travel Controversy as Bookings Ramp Up


Priceline Group declined to address President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees, opting to sit out a topic that has roiled the travel sector.
http://on.wsj.com/2lPNALF

Priceline's Profits Jump on Surge in Travel Bookings


Priceline Group’s profit rose a better-than-expected 31% in the fourth quarter amid a jump in travel bookings.
http://on.wsj.com/2lPNALF

Uber Fires a Top Software Engineer


Uber Technologies Inc. fired a top software engineer for failing to disclose allegations of sexual harassment at his previous employer, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.
http://on.wsj.com/2lPGWF2

Snap IPO: A $22 Billion Test for the Unsocial Social Network and Its Elusive Founder


Snap, which this week could become the biggest technology public offering in years, defiantly operates unlike most Silicon Valley outfits, where collaboration and wide-open office spaces are prized. The question is whether this management style and focus on privacy will help the company challenge the Facebook juggernaut.
http://on.wsj.com/2lPGUNC

YouTube Exceeds 1 Billion Hours of Video a Day


YouTube viewers world-wide are now watching more than 1 billion hours of videos a day, a milestone fueled by the Google unit’s aggressive embrace of artificial intelligence to recommend videos.
http://on.wsj.com/2lP3fLa

Lily Robotics Files for Bankruptcy Protection


Lily Robotics, the tech startup company that shut down before shipping its drone cameras, sought chapter 11 protection with plans to sell its technology and refund customers’ orders.
http://on.wsj.com/2l5aGkt

Amazon to Sell Game Downloads Directly From Twitch Streams


Amazon.com’s live-streaming business, Twitch, is entering the fast-growing market for digitally delivered computer videogames.
http://on.wsj.com/2lO4xGc

Do Nokia, BlackBerry Still Pack a Punch?


Licensing partners hope the answer is yes as they roll out new phones bearing the respected names at the Mobile World Congress.
http://on.wsj.com/2lOeVxQ

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway More Than Doubles Stake in Apple


Warren Buffett said his Berkshire Hathaway more than doubled its stake in Apple since the start of the new year, making the Silicon Valley giant one of Berkshire’s biggest equity holdings.
http://on.wsj.com/2lNrIAq

AT&T Lowers Price of Unlimited Data Plans


AT&T lowered the price of its unlimited data plans less than two weeks after opening them up to all subscribers, and said it would give added discounts to customers who pay for one of its television services.
http://on.wsj.com/2lNjDfp

Berkshire, Buffett More Than Double Stake in Apple


Warren Buffett said his Berkshire Hathaway more than doubled its stake in Apple since the start of the new year, making the Silicon Valley giant one of Berkshire’s biggest equity holdings.
http://on.wsj.com/2lNrIAq

Supersmart Robots Will Outnumber Humans Within 30 Years, Says SoftBank CEO


Within three decades, artificial intelligence will be smarter than the human brain, supersmart robots will outnumber humans and more than a trillion objects will be connected to the internet, says the CEO of SoftBank.
http://on.wsj.com/2l3dQVR

Indian Workers in U.S. Fear a Trump H-1B Crackdown


President Donald Trump’s plan to re-examine a range of visa programs to protect American jobs has many Indian engineers and computer scientists employed by U.S. tech companies putting life plans on hold and questioning career decisions.
http://on.wsj.com/2l3922C

GM, Tech Industry at Loggerheads Over Self-Driving Cars


General Motors is backing legislation in numerous states that tech companies say is designed to put them at a disadvantage in the nascent market for autonomous vehicles. GM denies the claim.
http://on.wsj.com/2lLWhqb

China's Huawei Battles to Own the Next Generation of Wireless Tech


As the standards for next-generation 5G wireless technology are defined, Huawei—with 80,000 staffers working on R&D—has become a formidable lab force.
http://on.wsj.com/2lLZTJ5

Sony's Virtual-Reality Headset Faces Actual Reality of Modest Sales


Sony sold 915,000 PlayStation VR virtual-reality headsets in the device’s first four months, a pace it called in line with its goals but that analysts said might be too slow to motivate outside software developers.
http://on.wsj.com/2lLPBZl

Sunday, 26 February 2017

DIY Gene Editing: Fast, Cheap---and Worrisome


The Crispr technique lets amateurs enter a world that has been the exclusive domain of scientists.
http://on.wsj.com/2lLrxWi

LG G6 First Look: A Taller Take on the Touch Screen


LG’s new flagship phone, the G6, is beautiful but stripped bare of the gimmickry that was a hallmark of its predecessors.
http://on.wsj.com/2lLsj5Q

Samsung Unveils Two New Tablet Computers


Samsung Electronics Co. introduced two new tablet computers at a Barcelona event that also offered a glimpse of how the South Korean technology giant planned to move past last year’s massive Galaxy Note 7 smartphone recall.
http://on.wsj.com/2lLrzxo

Huawei Launches New Flagship Phone: the P10


China’s Huawei Technologies, the world’s No. 3 smartphone maker, released a new flagship device aimed at taking on industry leaders Apple and Samsung.
http://on.wsj.com/2kZEa2R

A Jobs Program for Middle America: Code Schools


Boot camps that teach programming skills prove they can rapidly retrain American workers for the 21st century.
http://on.wsj.com/2kZpPDR

Back to Basics: LG's New Flagship Phone Ditches Geeky Features


LG’s smartphone business, having run up losses chasing early adopters with envelope-pushing features, seeks a different demographic with its new G6: users who prioritize fundamentals like screen size and battery life.
http://on.wsj.com/2kZAZIP

Snap Brings Camera Into Focus as Social Messaging Tool


On the cusp of going public, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. is reinventing itself. The hottest new social network in years—with 158 million daily active users—wants to be known as a camera company.
http://on.wsj.com/2kZpO2L

Saturday, 25 February 2017

Wireless Players Tout 5G as They Await Next Smartphone Wave


While wireless carriers battle each other by pushing unlimited data plans riding on their 4G networks, an industry gathering in Barcelona will be looking to the future.
http://on.wsj.com/2kWjN6Z

Friday, 24 February 2017

Acting SEC Chief Calls for Expanded Access to Startups, Private Deals


The SEC should allow more investors to buy stakes in closely held startups such as Uber, Airbnb and Lyft, the agency’s chairman said.
http://on.wsj.com/2l9unT9

Bigscreen Takes Aim at Social VR


The Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup is developing its software for sharing computer screens and socializing in virtual reality, which could find an audience in office conferences or other meeting places.
http://on.wsj.com/2l9rthc

Software Bug at Web-Service Provider Causes Data Leaks


A software bug at Cloudflare that caused it to leak data has created a potential security headache for thousands of its corporate customers.
http://on.wsj.com/2kUpli5

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Will Seek to Suspend Privacy Rule


FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he would seek to roll back key portions of an Obama-era privacy rule that cable and wireless firms opposed as unfair.
http://on.wsj.com/2lScUTM

Safety Tech for Motorcyclists (and Those Who Worry About Them)


While motorcycles may never be completely risk-free, safety innovations—like air-bag vests, adaptive headlights and helmets with heads-up displays—are keeping riders off the pavement.
http://on.wsj.com/2l7Viiq